According to the Labor Department, Black workers’ jobless rate fell to 5.8% on Friday, which is down from 6.0% in June. It’s also lower than the 6.0% rate from the previous year. Broken down by gender, Black men’s unemployment rate declined to 5.3% in July from 5.9% in June.
Meanwhile, Black women’s jobless rate fell to 5.2%, down from 5.4% the previous month.
These results show the labour market’s sustained tightness. In July, the unemployment rate in the United States remained unchanged at 3.5%, barely above the lowest level since late 1969.
Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program, said, “It shows that the labor market is strong and in a good place.”
“Even with the hikes, the interest rate hikes, that the Federal Reserve has been implementing, we continue to see unemployment remain low,” she added.
For Black employees, the labour force participation rate, which counts the number of people who are working or looking for work, increased marginally to 62.7%.
Also, the unemployment rate for Hispanic workers outraged slightly higher, to 4.4% in July from 4.3% in June. The rate for Hispanic men climbed to 4.0% from 3.8%. Hispanic women’s rate, on the other hand, downshifted slightly to 4.0% from 4.1% in comparison to June.
Further, Wilson said, “the slight rise could be due in part to the higher unemployment rates across the leisure and hospitality industries, transportation and utilities, as well as construction.”
“It seems to me that some of these patterns are related to what’s happening in industries where different groups of workers are a larger share of those employed in those industries,” Wilson added.
Conversely, Asian workers’ unemployment rate dropped to 2.3% in July, a 0.9% point drop from 3.2% in June.
However, Wilson also stated that “the report exhibited a positive trend for the labour market, especially as wage growth continues to show strength even as inflation drops.”
Additionally, in July, average hourly earnings climbed 0.4% for the month, higher than the 0.3% estimate from economists solicited by Dow Jones.
“We’re actually seeing now that inflation is falling faster than wage growth is slowing, which means that real wages are actually growing,” Wilson said.
“Those are signals that we can have a so-called soft landing as the Fed tries to manage and address inflation while also trying to make sure that we continue to have a strong labor market,” he added.
- Published By Team Genuine Reporter